June
Ice cream and sunsets and lyrics hitting me in the chest
Summer, I missed you so
Weekends getting booked up by family and old and new friends
There’s an electricity in the air
Two feminism-inspired unshaved legs
it floats,
a lure to the writer, the moth, the child
who would not look away.
A flame hovering above its wick, striving
toward the heights, only to flail against its anchor
in a struggle we interpret as a flicker.
Lightning bolts trapped
in the body of a bug blink
on, off, golden waves backlit against purple.
If only I could understand that drifting, lilting
language of light, I would be haunted by a love song
more beautiful than a whale’s theme–
I would learn why a flame is called a tongue.
The survivor
My father was a survivor of the Battle
of the Bulge
where he was wounded
and eligible for a Purple Heart
and a bronze star
but he did not stay in New York
to be examined to determine
what percentage of disability
he was due from the time of
that event.
” Said, Doc, I’ve been away from home
fighting Germans and I’m going home
now–come Hell or high water!”
“Well, son, I writing down here
that you have a 10% disability
for life. Get out of here!”
Every month he got a check.
It was a small check,
but it was something he
used with pride…
He never got the medals
for thay did not mean
all that much to him.
God grant me the serenity
to ignore loudmouths who haven’t earned my attention,
the courage to call motherfuckers out when they deserve it,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
The air in my daughter’s garage stifles my search
for my jar of coneflower seeds
packed in one of these boxes,
stacked and stored for unpacking later at my new house.
My garden shovel rests in a corner with the rake.
Sweating, I step outside
and think of last June,
leaving my lavender in bloom
rather than risk it dying from heat stress.
My life has always been this cycle:
a thriving, a packing up,
a waiting, an unpacking.
I learned the rhythm from a childhood in rentals,
the mantra of
“simplify,
simplify,
simplify”
intuited
before ever reading Thoreau in school.
My essentials fit in a backpack.
I know that moving demands
we weigh what we can carry
and gives relief
in the paring down
so we can start again,
traveling lightly.
And, what we can’t carry
remains hardest to leave:
a neighbor’s friendship,
the lavender in bloom.
we circled at Café Trieste
old friends throw catch up stories into rings of fire
as tight rope walkers balance ~ topics twirl:
*aging is not for the ‘feign of heart’ remember ~ acquire slick survival skills
*recognize a scam artist so as not to be fleeced of whole life’s savings as one story conveyed
*must not don the cloak of paranoia ~ believing icy fantasies construed as true in loneliness
*we share our wins pass around homemade sandwiches on crunchy rolls, drink lattes & steamed milk & laugh as the fog drifts in
*a wrapped b-day present delivered to a friend; he tears off all the paper down to the salami skin thinks it’s an umbrella; finally realizes: ain’t nothing like the real thing baby ~ a handmade Molinari Family Style Salami ~ the perfect Northa Beacha present, we ask, aren’t you glad it’s not an umbrella!
*we laughed we hugged we posed for a group pic at Biordi’s Ceramic Shop
*as we said good-bye we each held hope in our eyes we’d be together again
*we agreed emotions play a profound role in the body’s dis-ease & health
*we all held far away glances as we promised to keep our brains sharp
*shared a fun chanting remedy to ease hip pain away ~ Hip Hip Hooray there’s Joy in Everyday!
And we vowed as we bid adieu ~ promising we’d do all we can do ~ to stay in the air ~ with the greatest of flair ~ exuding oodles of ease ~ as we fly ~ o’er the circus trapeze!
That purple-ing right as the sun sets—
right as that last magenta is just going.
I picture the colors changing minimal
and flat like a modern Broadway show
of that childhood field: cardboard
standees of a barn, a yellow brick house,
trees on casters—
tobacco and corn in neat rows.
I can try to place us there like characters.
The fireflies flicker like special effects.
Noises of bugs playing their sleepy orchestra.
He holds up the cardboard backing
of his last G I Joe purchase, and shows me
the latest released figure, telling me
what he wants: a trip to Consumer’s Mall.
When I ask him if he has any money,
he simply says, “I’m gonna use yours!”
I love my grandson!
